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July 19, 2010
Kafkatrapping
Consider the model S:
Skepticism about any particular anecdotal account of {sin,racism,sexism,homophobia,oppression,}, or any attempt to deny that the particular anecdote implies a systemic problem in which you are one of the guilty parties, is itself sufficient to establish your guilt. Again, the common theme here is that questioning the discourse that condemns you, condemns you. This variant differs from the model A and model P in that a specific crime against an actual person usually is in fact alleged. The operator of the kafkatrap relies on the subject's emotional revulsion against the crime to sweep away all questions of representativeness and the basic fact that the subject didn't do it. -- Eric Raymond @ Armed and Dangerous
Posted by Vanderleun at July 19, 2010 7:25 PM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.
Your Say
I read about this in Gulag Archipelago. I experienced it the other day.
Posted by: Jewel at July 19, 2010 10:28 PM
Condemn the NAACP as racist -- ergo, you are racist. Q.E.D.
That's how simple-minded the civil-rights discourse has degraded to. Why? There is a profitable grievance industry that must have its bail-out as well.
Posted by: Blastineau at July 20, 2010 9:52 AM
Eric has come down pretty hard on any specific discussions of, e.g., the NAACP/Tea Party dustup, in his comments, largely because it's flamebait, but also, I think, because it's advantageous to keep it intellectualized and abstract, so that the results of this meme he's trying to promulgate are.
Blastineau has, here, caricatured the NAACP's argument against the Tea Party, and in doing so, has made for quite a teachable moment.
Eric wants to discredit movements that don't boot members who make bad arguments. (He's targeting a particular kind of bad argument, but that's the gist.) The movement as a whole may be quite virtuous, but they can be judged by who they tolerate. The NAACP was making a precisely-analogous charge: without making the charge that the Tea Party is a racist organization, they claimed that the Tea Party tolerates and harbors racism in its midst. Once they shook the branches thusly, a major Tea Party leader said something eye-poppingly racist, as if to prove their point.
The condemnation of the Tea Party was manifestly not simple grievance-mongering, and in fact worked on the same principle that the original post finds so laudable. If this were truly about the abstract principles that Eric says it is, that would be obvious.
Posted by: grendelkhan at July 23, 2010 6:15 AM